Photo courtesy Tablet

To do great writing, read great writing. Here’s some of the great writing I’ve been reading this week:

Sometimes a story is so good, it practically writes itself. Well, that’s not completely true. You still have to put in the work of writing it. But sometimes the situation, event or circumstances you’re called to write about are so incredible – interesting, funny, tragic, uplifting – that just getting the facts down is enough. Do it and you’ll have readers devouring your words and sharing them with all their friends.

That point is exemplified in three stories that made headlines this week:

The boy, the POTUS, the head pat and the photo - The New York Times ran a story and photo yesterday about a young boy touching President Obama’s hair because, “ I want to know if my hair is just like yours.” The boy’s father was leaving a White House job and the family was saying goodbye to the president when the boy popped the question, so a White House staff photographer was on hand to capture the moment. And what a moment. But the story itself is very matter of fact, and not that long – it doesn’t have to be. The impact is there. And Obama’s quote – “Touch it, dude!” – is classic. Props to reporter Jackie Calmes for getting it right.

Facebook IPO under investigation – Various news sources, including Reuters and Business Insider, were all over Facebook’s initial public offering, but didn’t stop reporting the story once shares in the social network started trading. Both news organizations dispatched multiple reporters and editors to look into possible financial reporting irregularities in the weeks and days leading up to the IPO, and into trading snafus that happened on the day itself. Their stories show how important it is for reporters to look beyond the surface of a big story. Yes, there were tons of stories about how much money Mark Zuckerberg was going to make from taking Facebook public, and what other newly minted Facebook millionaires were buying with their riches, how small investors were squeezed out of trading on the first day, and what lessons entrepreneurs and startups can learn from the company’s experience. But really, those angles of the story are pretty simple to come up with. When it seems like there’s more to something than meets the eye, there usually is. Here’s BusinessInsider’s latest, which links back to its past coverage: By the Way, the Facebook IPO Screwup Could be Curtains for NASDAQ. And here’s one from Reuters, again, with links back to all their other stories on the news: Facebook IPO is flashback to dot-com class action.

19 year old entrepreneur lives at AOL for two months before getting caught - You can’t make this stuff up. A 19 year old from Chicago wins a spot in an AOL-funded startup incubator. But when his time and funding run out after two months, he decides to basically camp out at the company’s Palo Alto office. He sleeps on couches off the security guards’ beaten path. He showers at the gym. He eats the free food the office provides employees (sounds a lot like this Natalie Portman movie, with computers). CNET’s Daniel Terdiman captures it all in matter-of-fact prose – because with a story this good, you don’t need embellishments.

Here’s what else I’ve been reading this week:

How to worry like a Jewish mother (Tablet.com) – On the other hand, sometimes a story is nothing but embellishment. Case in point, this little cream puff, a satire of writer guidelines for made-up parenting magazine Fretful Mother (as seen on The Simpsons) that manages to lambaste what has become a very convoluted, and for some writers, painful, process. Marjorie Ingall, a founding staffer of the now-shuttered Sassy, knows of what she writes, which is the basis for all good satire.

Pebble Hunting: Baseball and the F Word (Baseball Prospectus) – While the subject matter is definitely NSFW, the story is (unless your boss is a lip reader). I have my old officemate Andre Mouchard to thank for finding this lighthearted gem on swearing in the majors. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, BP writer Sam Miller analyzes all the different ways, times and reasons why baseball players, managers and even umpires drop the F bomb, using short video clips – with no audio, which is why it’s suitable for work – to illustrate his points. This is another case of a reporter knowing a subject well enough to pick up on a trend, or in this case, create one, and then doing a lot of research to fill in the details. You don’t have to like baseball to appreciate that.

If I started blogging today I would… (Various) – On Wednesday, everyone in the blogathon was invited to write on the same topic, what they’d do differently if they started a blog today. I’ll round up some of the most interesting entries in a post that will run here tomorrow. Meanwhile, here’s an example to whet your appetite, from writer Mikaela D’Eigh, who says she’s do more research before launching: If I started blogging today I would….

It’s graduation season, which means it’s time for a little inspiration. If you’re just graduating from journalism school and looking for your first job you’ll need it. If you’re considering switching from a staff job to working for yourself, you’ll need it. If you’re burned out from too many weeks of non-stop work with too little time off, you’ll need it.

Here’s some of the best inspiration for writers I’ve come across this week:

A noteworthy second act.

During the blogathon this week, bloggers were invited to write about how they’ve reinvented themselves one way or another. I’ll be sharing highlights of some of their posts on SecondAct.com (and will link to that post here when it’s up). But I wanted to share one story that was especially moving. When Arizona author and freelance writer Jackie Dishner discovered her husband had repeatedly cheated on her she took off – literally. She found her old bike in the garage, hopped on and started to ride. And ride. And ride. She rode herself into recovery, and then used her story to help other people – mainly women – dealing with abusive, harmful and otherwise fractured relationships. She became a motivational speaker, and started a blog called BIKE with Jackie to help the people she couldn’t talk to person. Jackie shares her inspiring story in this post: A bike ride to my second act.

Facebook friends in high places.

Facebook started selling shares of its stock today; in the business world that’s a big deal. For Facebook employees who stand to earn a ton of money, it’s huge. It’s seems appropriate to include something about the social media giant in a round up on inspiration. I only recently came across a speech about women in the workplace that Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg gave at a 2010 TED conference. Her subject:  why there are too few women at the top of U.S. companies, and what women can and should do about it. It’s over 15 minutes long, but definitely worth viewing.

Get on the bus.

Freelancers have a love/hate relationship with Peter Shankman based on how well they like or dislike Help a Reporter Out (HARO), the service he created for matching writers with potential sources. Regardless of what you think of the guy, he’s a heck of a writer. In June 2008, he published what’s for an intents and purposes a commencement speech that he was moved to write after overhearing two high school seniors reading through their yearbook while riding a bus in New York City – seniors who were gradating from the same high school he’s graduated from 18 years before. It’s classic Shankman: smart, funny and wise, words to live by whether you’re headed off to college or well into your career.

Think different.

It’s been seven months since Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died, and seven years since he gave this now famous commencement address at Stanford University. If you haven’t ever heard it, it’s worth the almost 15 minutes. And if you have, it’s worth hearing again for the wisdom Jobs shares about failure, life and death.

I had another terrible fight with my editor today. I just can’t believe the things that woman says to me.

Jodi Torpey

She’s so critical. Nothing I write is good enough. She’s never said a nice word about any of my writing. She scoffs at all my brilliant ideas, takes a red pen to some of my best lines, and erases pages of writing that took hours to compose.

Who is she? She’s me.

My internal editor is there while I’m writing, too. She looks over my shoulder constantly and corrects my grammar. Sometimes she deletes my carefully crafted sentences as soon as I write them.

But, even though she’s impossible to please, I couldn’t write without her.

She’s the one who reminds me to just get to the point when my writing starts to ramble. Her nitpicking forces me to cut wordy phrases and to use active verbs. “Passive voice is so passé,” she likes to say.

“That section is too long. This chapter so disorganized,” she complains. “Who could possibly understand this?”

When I struggle to find just the right word she’ll simply say, “You have to be hard on yourself to make it easy for your reader.”

Thanks to my internal critical editor, I spend twice as much time planning what I’m going to write before I start writing it. If it weren’t for her disapproving glare I’d be tempted to take some silly shortcuts.

Here are five ways to calm the internal editor in you:

1. Think before you write. Spend a few quiet minutes thinking about your purpose for writing and what you want to say. If your thinking isn’t clear, your writing won’t be clear either.

2. Picture your reader. Imagine where he or she will be reading your writing. Keep their needs in mind with every word you write.

3. Write with consistency. Understand what works in your writing process and tap into it every time you sit down to write.

4. Start sooner. Just put words to paper. The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be.

5. Revise everything. Revising is where real writing happens. Check to make sure your message is clear, the writing concise, and that every word supports your purpose.

My internal editor’s fault-finding is frustrating, but it’s effective. My writing is always better once she’s finished with me.

How do you quiet your inner editor?

[This is post is written by a sponsor of the 2012 WordCount Blogathon. This sponsor is providing products or services to be given away during the June 1 blogathon raffle.]

Maurice Sendak died this week at 83. The children’s book author and illustrator dared to be different: he depicted childhood as it was – fun but scary, at times adventurous and tedious. Fighting with your siblings and making up afterwards. Daydreams and nightmares.

For writers, inspiration comes in many forms. This week, mine came from Sendak, who I grew up reading, and whose books I lovingly shared with my own children.

Here are five of my favorites:

In the Night Kitchen – If you visit my parents’ house, you’ll find this book in a downstairs bedroom where grandkids stay when they visit, one of several dozen children’s books that have been there for years.

Little Bear – Sendak illustrated this book by Else Holmelund Minarik, about the little bear who’s learning to be comfortable in his own skin (or fur) and his very patient mother.

Chicken Soup with Rice: A Book of Months – Like Dr. Seuss, Sendak showed that it’s OK to be silly while teaching something serious, in this case, the months of the year.

No Fighting, No Biting - Another Else Holmelund Minarik book with illustrations by Sendak. I grew up with three sisters – all of us a year apart – and a little brother who came along when I was eight. Though we’re all close now, we fought constantly growing up, which is why I appreciate this little book so much.

Where the Wild Things Are – A classic.

What are your favorites by Sendak?

I’ve worked as a journalist or freelance reporter and editor my entire career. Here are some of the movies that helped direct me toward that path or inspire me to do what I do:

All the President’s Men (1976)

I didn’t know it at the time, but Woodward and Bernstein helped me become a reporter. The book and movie came out while I was in high school. I didn’t immediately connect the dots between myself and working as a journalist. But it did stoke my growing interest in politics and the small role I could play in helping make the world a better place.

Absense of Malice (1981)

As far as casting goes, Paul Newman and Sandy Field wouldn’t have been my choice for this film, the story of an innocent man targeted by prosecutors out to solve the mystery of a murdered union boss and the unwitting role an reporter plays in the set up. The takeaway from this movie: you can’t take what sources tell you at face value – even if they’re supposed to be the good guys. Take notes, do your own digging and verify, verify, verify. The other lesson of this movie – one that should go without saying but bears repeating anyway – don’t sleep with your sources.

Broadcast News (1987)

In the late 1980s, women in the media business were still attempting to break the glass ceiling standing between them and prime-time on air jobs or upper management. Holly Hunter’s character Jane Craig was our hero. Smart and strong, she kept her vulnerabilities to herself (with crying  jags in the privacy of her office) and refused to sacrifice integrity for her own happiness. Did that send a message that you can’t have it all? Maybe. But it was the right message for the time.

Almost Famous (2000)

Have you ever been so passionate about something you’d risk everything – school, family, lying about who you are – to pursue it? In Almost Famous, William Miller – the alter ego of writer and director Cameron Crowe – does all of that at the tender age of 15 to pursue his dream of being a rock journalist. He gets his chance when Rolling Stone sees some writing he’s done for underground music magazines and asks for pitches. He ends up going on the road with an up-and-coming rock band. Almost Famous is about a lot of things, but the part I like the most is Miller’s persistance. After turning in a lousy first draft of his road tale with the band, the magazine gives him a second chance. The revised manuscript, a first-person account of sex, drugs and rock and roll, is great. But when the magazine to fact checks the piece, band members deny everything. Yeah, that happens, and it’s not fun. Watch the movie to find out how things work out.

State of Play (2009)

In this remake of a British TV miniseries, a team of investigative reporters for a fictional big-city daily work alongside a police detective to solve the murder of a congressman’s mistress. The film moves at a break-neck speed, and isn’t without some plot holes (that no doubt the longer miniseries version did a better job of filling), and has an almost unbelievable number of plot twists. But it succeeds in capturing what it’s like to be on a big story and capture what’s really going down while on deadline. If you’ve ever worked in a newsroom – physical or virtual – you know what I’m talking about. There’s nothing like that particular kind of adrenaline rush. And State of Play managed to capture it. Besides, it’s got Russell Crowe, who even looks good playing a schlumpy journalist.

To do great writing, read great writing. Here’s the great writing I’ve been reading this week.

Between launching the Blogathon, getting my regular freelance work done and tackling a bunch of non-work related activities – ever notice how many school events, showers, birthdays and holidays happen in May? – I haven’t done a lot of outside reading this week.

But I did manage to do a little. Here are some highlights:

The World’s Longest Invoice (Freelancers Union) – For any freelancer who’s been stiffed by a client. Freelancers Union head Sara Horowitz put together this page as a humorous attempt to bring attention to a not so humorous problem of magazines, advertising agencies and other clients hiring independent contractors and then not paying for the work. In one week, the tally of uncollected income is closing in on $16 million.

Blogathon 2012 (@MichelleRafter) - Speaking of the Blogathon, one way to read what bloggers in the month-long challenge are writing is by following them on Twitter. I’ve made that simple, by creating a Twitter list of everyone in the Blogathon who’s on Twitter – well, almost everyone. Right now, the list is up to 108 bloggers, and I’m continuing to add people as I see them or they contact me. If you’re doing the event and I haven’t added you yet, please tweet me a message to add you to the list.

A Tech Sabbath offers a chance to unplug, recharge (Oregonian) – Movie critic Shawn Levy explains the benefit of going screen-free for 24 hours. I’m taking his advice – after getting the Blogathon up and running I need it – and tonight I’m heading for the hills for a night of camping with the Boy Scouts, sans electronics.

Mockingjay – I’m a latecomer to the Hunger Games franchise. I held out last year when everyone was buzzing about it. But I succumbed during the build up to the movie and found the first book to be easy pleasure reading, a good way to spend a rainy weekend, which we have plenty of in Oregon (where clouds don’t disappear and summer doesn’t start until July 5). Ditto for Catching Fire, which I finished a couple weekends ago. When a friend said she’d loan me her copy of Mockingjay, I jumped at the chance. Tonight when the Boy Scouts are singing around the campfire, I’ll be tucked in my tent with Katniss, Gale, Peeta, Haymitch, Prim and the gang.

The annual American Society of Journalists and Authors writers conference is taking place right now in New York. I went last year to give a presentation and meet fellow writers and editors. I was invited back this year but had to drop out when work got so busy I couldn’t afford the time away. But I’m still planning to follow along via Twitter. I suggest you do too.

Here’s how to use Twitter and TweetChat to learn what’s happening at ASJA:

1. Log onto your Twitter account.
2. Open a new tab in your browser and log onto TweetChat, an app that lets you track Twitter conversations by hashtag, and if you want to join in, automatically adds the appropriatehashtag to your tweets. To log on to TweetChat, you have to give the application permission to access your Twitter account – do this or you won’t be able to see the ASJA tweets.
3. Once you’re logged on, enter “ASJA2012″ in the search box at the top of TweetChat’s front page – that’s the official hashtag that ASJA is using for tweets related to the writers conference – and click on “Go.” TweetChat will automatically switch to a screen that shows you all of the #ASJA2012 tweets as they’re happening.
4. To ask someone a question or tweet something that everyone else monitoring the #ASJA2012 hashtag will see, type into the “Message to #asja2012″ box at the top of the screen. Because  TweetChat automatically adds the appropriate hashtag to your tweet, you’re message will need to be slightly less than 140 characters.
5. Wait a few seconds and your message will pop up in the #ASJA2012 tweet stream.
6. You can also use TweetChat to reply to or retweet someone else following the hashtag. You can also use it to favorite a tweet or look up the Twitter profile of someone who’s participating in the conversation.
7. Keep TweetChat open in your browser for as long as you’re interested in tracking the action.

Other interesting links for writers:

15 newsroom tools from CIR’s TechRacking conference (10,000 Words) - Google recently sponsored a day-long conference for 200 news types where, according to the 10,000 Words blog, one of the common themes was, “ If we have to do more with less, then technology has to make up the difference.” Some of those tools are mentioned in this post, including Wavii, an instant news feed that lets you follow topics you might be writing about, and SpeakerText,  a tool that works with the SoundCloud API and transcribes audio (goodbye transcription service).

Data Journalism Handbook – Speaking of hacks and hackers, this handbook was created during a 48-hour workshop in London in 2011 and was subsequently added to by major U.K. and U.S. news organizations. Use the website to add yourself to a list to be notified when the free web version of the book is out; an O’Reilly version is also coming soon.

75 ‘Write for Us’ pages (Freelance Writing Jobs) – Jackpot. The popular freelance blog made the hard work of looking for work a little easier by assembling this list of  print and online markets for freelancers. Some listings include rates – and truth be told, many of them them are pretty low. [[UPDATED @ 2:30 p.m. Friday, 4/27 - It's now been brought to my attention that this post is from 2010, a major fact I overlooked when I read through the information after seeing a link to it on Twitter earlier this week. I'm leaving it up, but be warned, the info is now pretty old.]]

 How tech’s giants want to reinvent journalism (PaidContent) – Current thinking on how news is and could be, from representatives of Google and Facebook.

Economics 101 (BizJournalism.com) – Online course on economics for freelancers and other journalists interested in reporting on business or brushing up on their skills. June 26-28 for an hour a day.

I can tell you one piece of great writing I wasn’t reading this week – the book that won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for 2012. That’s because – as you’ve probably heard by now – there was no winner.

The three Pulitzer judges in the fiction category – including a well-known author and a English professor at Georgetown who reviews books on NPR – gave their three picks to the Pulitzer Prize jurors to read and vote on. Only they couldn’t decide. Or they hated everything. Or it was a three-way tie. In truth, we’ll never know because the committee doesn’t comment on its selection process.

The reactions have been coming all week and they range from upset to furious to funny. Here are some highlights:

• Book lovers react bitterly to no fiction Pulitzer (Reuters) – Initial reaction.
• Pulitzer’s no decision on fiction prize exposes flaw in process (Washington Post) – Fiction judge Maureen Corrigan weighs in on what’s wrong with the current Pulitzer selection set up.
• Book Buzz: Pulitzer winners and those who came close  (SecondAct.com) – They might not have won, but they’re still worth reading, argues reviewer David Ferrell about these also rans.
• The Leaked Pulitzer Fiction Memos (New Yorker) – If you can’t do anything else about the situation you might as well laugh at it. Which humor columnist Avi Steinberg does, and very well.

Other good reads for the past week:

The bravest woman in Seattle (The Stranger) – Eli Sanders’ Pulitzer-winning feature story about a woman who testified against the man who brutalized her and killed her partner, published in Seattle’s alt-weekly. Proving once again that you don’t have to write for The New Yorker, New York Times, Washington Post or other major daily or national magazine to do great work.

101 Spectacular Nonfiction Stories of 2011 (Byliner) - Sanders’ piece is included in Conor Friedersdorf’s annual collection of the best of the years’s nonfiction writing. Even the headlines and descriptions are mesmerizing. Best consumed on an iPad or Kindle, so you can lounge while you read.

Getting the News – Danah Boyd (News.me) – The latest in a continuing series of profiles of news industry and other personalities and how they find, manage and read what they read. Because if you’re in the business of writing, you need to keep up with the business of reading.

From designers to all clients (Art+Design) – What every web designer wants to tell their (freelance writing) clients, but doesn’t…

It’s not fair. How can one person be so good at two things?

Abraham Verghese is a doctor and a writer. As a doctor, he’s good enough to be a professor at Stanford’s medical school. As a writer, he’s good enough to have had essays published in The New Yorker and penned two well-received nonfiction books. Then there’s the novel that’s made him famous, Cutting for Stone, his semi-autobiographical account of an Indian boy growing up in Addis Abbaba in the 1950s and 1960s before coming to the United States for his medical residency.

I heard Verghese speak last night at Portland’s Literary Arts author lecture series. He’s as captivating in person as he is on the page. You can tell he’s a teacher: he spoke extemporaneously for more than an hour and walked around the stage instead of hiding behind the podium. He recited lines from Of Human Bondage and William Carlos Williams. He told stories about growing up in Ethiopia to Indian parents, working with AIDS patients as a young doctor in Tennessee, leaving medicine briefly to attend the famous Iowa Writers Workshop, and getting a job at a hospital in El Paso, Texas, that would give him room to write.

I guess that makes three things he’s good at: medicine, writing and speaking.

He spoke a lot about writing. I’m saving some of what he shared for another post. But here’s a taste.

• On fiction: “Fiction is a great lie that tells the truth about how the world is.” Want an example: Uncle Tom’s Cabin. “It ended slavery in this country, that’s how important fiction is.”
• On nonfiction: “Nonfiction outsells fiction 10 to 1. What nonfiction has going for it is that it’s really happened, and readers are interested in that. With fiction, you have to work 20 times harder to make it believable.”
• On how he fits writing into his schedule: “There’s something absolutely holy about work, it’s my inspiration to write.”
• On how long it takes him to write: “It took me eight years to write Cutting for Stone. Joyce Carol Oates has probably written two books since breakfast.”

Verghese is working on his next book, which he says will be set in the Christian area of Kerala in southern India where his parents were born. But don’t ask him exactly what it’s going to be about, or when it’ll be finished. When people ask about his next book – which happens a lot – he says his first reaction is, “What about the last one?”

Other writing instruction and inspiration from this week:

Roy Peter Clark

The April issue of the American Society of Journalists and Authors newsletter features a Q&A with the Poynter Institute writing instructor, who’s been helping students since 1979. Clark has written more than two dozen books, many of them on writing, and writes the organization’s weekly Writing Tools newsletter (which is worth reading, sign up!).

I won’t crib too much from Clark’s interview – ASJA would probably frown on revealing more than a few lines from what’s supposed to be a members’ only newsletter. However, I wanted to share a few of his writing tips that I found to be especially relevant:

• On teaching student writers and old pros: “The student and the master both worry about their work. They both struggle to find things to write about. They both procrastinate. They both have a hard time with the research. They both resist editing and criticism.”
• On improving your writing: “Go on a diet! Get some exercise! Get out of the chair and move! It may sound like I’m kidding, but I’m not. I’m stuck in the chair so often that I’ve got pains in my neck, shoulders, lower back, wrists, you name it. Those physical ailments take a toll on your writing.”
• On endings: “I always look at my last paragraph and ask myself: ‘What would happen if you cut this?’ In journalism, we often talk about burying or hiding the lead of the story, but we can also bury the ending. I’m always looking for a natural ending place, and these days I look for it earlier and earlier.”

Gay Talese

The literary journalism pioneer spoke as part of the Harvard’s Writers at Work series recently and some of his remarks were reprinted in the spring 2012 volume of the school’s Nieman Reports. Here are the bits I loved best, because they show that even a famous writer struggles with the frustrations that dog the rest of us:

• On the writing process: “In one way I can say I waste a lot of time; it’s part of my occupation; I’m an occupational time waster because so much of what you do doesn’t immediately measure up.”
• On getting better with experience: “I don’t think I’ve learned anything in terms of technique. It’s as hard now as it was for me then.”

You may be the oldest one in the newsroom, but you can’t act like an old fart, at least not if you want to stay employed, and employable.

Steve Buttry’s open letter to long-time news workers who resist moving into the digital storytelling age boils down to that one piece of advice.

Buttry, a long-time journalist and news business blogger, encapsulated the wisdom he’s gleaned working as community engagement and social media director for Digital First Media in a blog post this week called Dear Newsroom Curmudgeon.

Journalists who’ve worked on papers for a long time might be reticent to change because they fear the quality of their work will suffer, they’re afraid of change, or they don’t have the time or patience to learn new tools. But they need to get over it – and just do it, Buttry says. And when was working as a reporter ever easy? He says:

Did you ever sit through a boring meeting or cover a blowout ballgame? Did you ever feel like a vulture after talking to grieving relatives who lost a loved one in the breaking news story you were covering? Do you like filling out expense accounts? Journalism remains a fun profession, but that doesn’t mean every task is fun or every day is fun. We do a good job (sometimes a great job) covering boring events and talking to grieving relatives and we fill out accurate expense accounts. We do this because we love the job most of the time and every great job includes some tasks we don’t relish. And professional pride drives us to do those unpleasant tasks well. So tweet. Blog. Shoot video. Or whatever. It’s part of the job. And it’s still a damn good job.

I added my two cents in a comment that I’ll repeat here: There’s one way to force yourself to learn digital reporting skills: work as a freelance journalist. It’s not just a question of relevance, but of livelihood.

Today if freelancers don’t have a web presence, and can’t use the tools you mention to report and publish their work, they either aren’t going to get noticed, or get the jobs. In the past four years, I’ve gotten freelance jobs blogging, live tweeting a conference, managing a blog series and helping launch a news microsite because of the digital journalism skills I essentially taught myself. Experiment – it’s a fun way to learn.

In other news on writing and the writing business from this week:

Should Writers Give up on Getting Paid for Their Writing? (CBC) – Seth Godin is up to his old tricks. An Internet promotions guru who practically invented viral marketing plays the role of provocateur, declaring in an interview on Canadian radio  - one of many he’s given recently to promote a new book – that authors can no longer expect to be compensated for their work.

“The future is going to be filled with amateurs, and the truly talented and persistent will make a great living. But the days of journeyman writers who make a good living by the word – over,” Godin says in a separate interviewwith Digital Book World.

But don’t despair. The Grateful Dead made it despite not basing its business on CD sales, and smart writers will figure out other ways to make money, Godin says. “Are you a chef? A public speaker? If you’re a mystery writer, can you find 1000 true fans to pay $100 dollars a year each to get an ongoing serial from you? It’s not the market’s job to tell authors how to monetize their work. The market doesn’t care. If there’s no scarcity of what they want, it’s hard to get them to pay for it.”

The 100 Outstanding Journalists in the United States in the Past 100 Years (NYU) – Uncle Walter is there, along with Woodward and Berstein, Bartlett and Steele, Gloria Steinem, Jimmy Breslin and Herb Caen. But were are the journalists of color on the list? Too few and far between, according to Unity. The professional organization for journalists of color responded to what it felt was a lack of diversity on the NYU list by creating its own compilation of 100 journalists of the past century. The list includes Oakland Tribune  executive editor Leroy Aarons, New York Times managing editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Dean Banquet; Oregonian editor Peter Bhatia, who was also the first Asian American to be president of the American Society of  Newspaper Editors (and a friend),  60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley, and PBS NewsHour anchor Gwen Ifill.

2011 IRE Award Winners (Investigative Reporters & Editors) – Prizes for the year’s best investigative work go to ABC’s KTRK affiliate in Houston for an expose on corruption among local law enforcement officers, and California Watch and KQED San Francisco for their stories examining lack of uniform seismic safeguards at California’s public schools. Here’s a complete list of 2011 IRE Award winners.

Businessweek ‘tag team’ talks about how their subjects are boring (visually) and how they try to make them not be (Capital) – This is sweet reading for business reporters – like me – who constantly struggle with how to bring creativity to hard to illustrate stories, such as the monthly unemployment report I did earlier today. During a recent visit to Columbia’s journalism school, two Bloomberg Businessweek graphic designers shared how they redesigned the magazine’s stodgy image after Bloomberg took it over in 2009, according to a report in Capital, a news site covering New York. “We’re not afraid to play and to experiment. We kind of know that we have, visually anyway, boring subject matter. … We just try to make it as interesting as we can,” BB creative director Richard Turley tells Capital.

Out With the Long (The Economist) – The British magazine celebrates brevity with an essay written entirely in one-syllable words.

Math for Journalists: Help with Numbers (News University) – Poynter’s online media training center is offering a three-hour, self-directed course designed to help reporters with such math essentials as calculating costs of living and estimating crowd sizes. Instructor Debbie Wolfe is an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, and former technology training editor at the St. Petersburg Times.